Aliza is a contemporary wildlife artist who was born and raised on a tiny island near Seattle. Painting animals was always an escape from the chaos around her growing up.
Aliza and her monsters' describes her journey of growth, struggle and solace as an artist.
Aliza's 'monsters' reflect hidden pasts, fears, monsters unseen, and our yearning for human connection.
The animals, her monsters, represent the wild hearted spirit within us all.
Her visionary animals and imaginative landscapes invite viewers to re-wild and reconnect with the natural world.
With love and reverence, Aliza paints the menagerie of her monsters, bringing their ferocity and curiosity to life. - Written by Ben Yu,FNP-c
Aliza and her monsters' describes her journey of growth, struggle and solace as an artist.
Aliza's 'monsters' reflect hidden pasts, fears, monsters unseen, and our yearning for human connection.
The animals, her monsters, represent the wild hearted spirit within us all.
Her visionary animals and imaginative landscapes invite viewers to re-wild and reconnect with the natural world.
With love and reverence, Aliza paints the menagerie of her monsters, bringing their ferocity and curiosity to life. - Written by Ben Yu,FNP-c
tl;dr:
I've been making the same painting ever since I was a kid. I didn’t have a wonderful family dynamic growing up: my parents loved my twin sister and I, but not each other. They divorced when we were very young and I saw just how awful people can be to each other. Painting animals, my monsters, was always the get-away from the chaos around me. After people, animals are a relief. I return to a lot of the same subjects and find comfort in being able to revisit them when I need to.
I think it’s important to understand your origins, where you came from and what glued your bones together, if you want to effectively tell your story.
I come from a very small town on a very small island near Seattle. "Downtown" Langley, by generous estimate, was about 6 blocks. . Everyone knew too much about everyone else. I didn’t grow up in the busy, nonstop city where I now live. Going to the ‘mainland’ was always an event requiring strategic planning around ferry lines. I am more familiar with wide open spaces with actual trees and wild life than with grid lock traffic, shopping malls and sky scrapers. The island does have a county fair, which is the big event of the year. That’s actually where all the wild bunnies came from, legend has it. A couple escaped one year, and well, you know how rabbits are.
Painting is not memory. Memory is the recreation of experience or the reliving of it. For me, painting is about experience and it is open ended. The viewer and the artist lock nervous systems around each other and manufacture a world that wasn’t there before. It is a collaborative experience. Art makes for the greatest excuse to stare at each other: it gives us a chance to glimpse inside someone else's heart in the hopes that that will offer us a little purchase on our own hearts.
It is as close as I can get to taking you by the hand and bringing you on the ferry to go to the island full of wild bunnies where I come from.
Lately, I’m becoming less interested in realism and more interested in the expression of movement and the aliveness I feel when I’m at the easel. I might be the only painter who doesn’t believe in a still life.
More than anything, I’m here to tell my own story and hopefully break down some of the stigma around mental illness.
This is me in my small world, with my big paintings and hard feelings.
And, most importantly,
all my monsters.
I think it’s important to understand your origins, where you came from and what glued your bones together, if you want to effectively tell your story.
I come from a very small town on a very small island near Seattle. "Downtown" Langley, by generous estimate, was about 6 blocks. . Everyone knew too much about everyone else. I didn’t grow up in the busy, nonstop city where I now live. Going to the ‘mainland’ was always an event requiring strategic planning around ferry lines. I am more familiar with wide open spaces with actual trees and wild life than with grid lock traffic, shopping malls and sky scrapers. The island does have a county fair, which is the big event of the year. That’s actually where all the wild bunnies came from, legend has it. A couple escaped one year, and well, you know how rabbits are.
Painting is not memory. Memory is the recreation of experience or the reliving of it. For me, painting is about experience and it is open ended. The viewer and the artist lock nervous systems around each other and manufacture a world that wasn’t there before. It is a collaborative experience. Art makes for the greatest excuse to stare at each other: it gives us a chance to glimpse inside someone else's heart in the hopes that that will offer us a little purchase on our own hearts.
It is as close as I can get to taking you by the hand and bringing you on the ferry to go to the island full of wild bunnies where I come from.
Lately, I’m becoming less interested in realism and more interested in the expression of movement and the aliveness I feel when I’m at the easel. I might be the only painter who doesn’t believe in a still life.
More than anything, I’m here to tell my own story and hopefully break down some of the stigma around mental illness.
This is me in my small world, with my big paintings and hard feelings.
And, most importantly,
all my monsters.
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